Holy mother of God!" exclaimed the cardinal (who had read this passage ironically and emphatically), as he flung the volume to the farthest end of the apartment, "and thou permittest this wretch to encumber the earth! Holy St. Francis of Assisium! thou whose life was a miracle of humility; who, in a glorious vision, beheld our Saviour hanging on his cross; and thou hast permitted the heretic dog, who writes thus of thy clergy, again to escape me!" "I heard that he had broken forth from your eminence's archiepiscopal castle of St. Andrew's some months ago." "True,--while my guards (the drunken rascals!) slept; but I should have made them answer for him body for body. Truly, the college of St. Barbe hath reason to be proud of its professor, this learned Buchanan, for there he is at present teaching grammar and the humanities; and now I hear that the Earl of Cassilis (whom I know to be an arch-heretic, traitor, and corresponder with Henry of England) is about to secure him from me in his castle of Culzean, as a tutor for his son, the Lord Gilbert Kennedy. By the cross, he is a rare tutor! But let this lord beware; for though he is brother of Quentin Kennedy, that good abbot of Crossraguell, whose pieties are those of a saint, the people of Scotland shall see whether a cardinal's hat or an earl's coronet will weigh the heavier in the scales of justice and of Heaven." The cardinal was both exasperated and satirical. Father St. Bernard found that he had chosen an unfortunate time to prefer his request, and while he was rallying all his thoughts to introduce a more pleasing topic of conversation than that broached by the cardinal, the latter said, suddenly, but in a milder tone: "And now, my good old friend, St. Bernard, what dost thou wish me to do for thee?" "May it please your eminence to grant me your patience and pardon." The cardinal put one leg over the other, laid his hand upon the wine-cup, and nodded, as much as to say--"Good: I see the reverend father has some request to make of me." "My Lord Cardinal, dost thou remember the 30th of August, 1534?" "The 30th of August, 1534!" repeated the cardinal, pondering. "That 30th of August, when I implored your eminence not to pass through Fife to St. Andrew's." "I do," said the cardinal, becoming suddenly animated, "for there were certain mysterious circumstances--but what of that now? 'tis three years ago." "My lord, I know not whether that which I am about to reveal be a sin, or whether, by so doing, I am breaking the irrevocable seal of confession; the man who told what I am about to relate, made afterwards a public confession, when he was expiring in the streets of Kinghorn, but of all the crowd around him, I alone understood to what he referred--unhappy being!" "Go on," said the cardinal, sipping his wine, "I am already all ears and impatience."